May every shirt you wear have an itchy tag you can’t remove.

Literally? No. We’re all subject to the same laws of physics.

Perceptual reality? World view? Yes. I only know one person in real life and not online (my wife) who shares some of my views of reality. For instance, I am a doomer. I am convinced we are well into the sixth, and by all accounts the most devastating, mass extinction. Humans are clever, but we depend on a stable environment for our food. That stable environment is turning into a series of alternating droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, and other extreme weather events. TBH, I’d be surprised if our species lasts to the end of the century. Hanson figures that, after feedbacks, we are on track for 10c of warming. That’s apocalyptic. And every time scientists talk about it you hear words like ‘faster than expected’. We are doing exactly nothing to prevent it, and are, in fact, accelerating the collapse by increasing our consumption, population, pollution, and environmental destruction. COP has been talking about it for so long (almost 30 years) that we’ve missed the boat. We are well past the point where we could stop it. We’re in the ‘find out’ stage now.

Yet people keep having kids and planning for the future like everything is going to be just fine. Can you not see what’s happening? When’s the last time you scraped bugs off your car windshield? They’re all dying out. The biosphere is collapsing around us. But sure, keep contributing to your 401K. Keep talking about how the ‘fertility crisis’ is the big issue. Keep thinking that somehow windmills and recycling are going to save the planet. Tell me more about how voting is going to fix the problem. I feel like Kate Dibiasky saying we’re all going to die while everyone around me wants to talk about their PTA, the latest social issue, or which politician they like.

(deep breath)

Yes. I do feel like my perception of reality is different than most people I know. I don’t know most of humanity so I can’t really say, but it sure seems like it.

I’ve done some blacksmithing as a hobby. The two most common ways of heating the metal are a gas or a coal forge. The coal forge normally has some sort of forced air coming from the bottom to feed the fire. The coal starts burning real smoky like, but then turns to coke and burns hotter the more air you force through it. Typically you pile some coal around the sides of the fire so it converts to coke then you scoop it into the fire as needed. Also it produces a waste product called clinker that builds up at the bottom of the fire at the tuyere (the nozzle or grate the air is forced through). It’s kind of like stone or metal and it needs to be cleaned out to keep the fire going.

https://earth.nullschool.net/ realtime global wind, pressure, temp, etc.

He’s referring to the fact that the Effective Altruism / Less Wrong crowd seems to be focused almost entirely on preventing an AI apocalypse at some point in the future, and they use a lot of obscure math and logic to explain why it’s much more important than dealing with war, homelessness, climate change, or any of the other issues that are causing actual humans to suffer today or are 100% certain to cause suffering in the near future.

As a kid, probably Lode Runner. It ran on my pc. Some arcade games were fun. I enjoyed Asteroids. Colossal Cave, and the Infocom games like Planetfall were fun too. Though what really hooked me was Doom. It was the first real 3d FPS game and it blew my mind. It’s been my favorite genre ever since.

Just finished Breathedge. Subnautica in space? Sort of, but with a ‘ha, aren’t we game developers funny’ kind of humor. Portal is an immersive game that’s really funny. The humor in Breathedge, however, insures you can never really settle in to the game. Even so, It’s most impressive what such a small team was able to accomplish.

Just started Plague Tale: Innocence. Stealth survival with hordes of rats - a little creepy and I’m not really expecting an uplifting ending, but we’ll see how it goes.

Which is an issue if those artists want to copyright their work. So far the US has maintained that AI generated art is not subject to copyright protection.

First of all it’s completely understandable for you to feel frustrated and stressed in a situation like this. You really don’t have the power to fix other people’s problems. Have you ever been to a therapist? The one constant among good therapists is that they don’t give you advice. They don’t tell you what to do. And they don’t try to fix the problems in your life. But they do end up helping you. So what do they know that the rest of us don’t? They know that the best way to help someone is to listen supportively, to validate their feelings, and to give them a chance to think about their life while leaning on the emotional support of someone who cares about them. There’s more but that’s a good start. And if you can do that you really are helping a lot more than you think.

Take as an example, a conversation I had with my wife today (remembered as well as I can). She was in a really bad mood and wasn’t talking with me.
I asked her “what’s got you feeling down today?”
She angrily said she didn’t want to talk with me about it because she knew what I would say and she didn’t want to hear it.
(That, by the way, is a pretty clear hint that someone is not in present time emotionally.)
I said “so you’re saying I’m never supportive of you when you’re upset?”
She said “I’m feeling overworked and stressed. There’s always too much to do. And I know you are just going to say you also have too much to do.”
I said “I did say ‘I feel the same way’ once when you said you could use a day off. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate that you’re overworked. I understand. There’s a lot going on right now and it’s hard to keep up.”
She continued talking about how she felt. I continued validating her feelings. And she cheered up and her mood improved.

My point is, “just being there” is code for listening supportively, validating someone’s feelings, and helping them regain the balance they need to address their problems themselves.

Edit: to be clear, I’m no saint. Sometimes I’m the grumpy one and my wife is the paitent one. It works both ways.

The issue with quests in RDR2 is that they give you no autonomy. Most games set a quest objective and give you a dozen ways to achieve it. RDR2 forces you to follow the exact path through the quest that the game wants you to take. If you deviate it either fails to progress or simply fails the quest. It felt more to me like an interactive movie than a game in that respect, though you get full freedom outside of quests.